Solar Power Your Ford Focus Electric Car

[GreenRPMs]

After being dazzled by the actual video production (the music, the simplicity, the message etc.) I am actually hoping this is a possibility for me. Here is the ford focus electric video I stumbled upon that got me really thinking.

http://youtu.be/RbzKvyjgy2I

I am not sure how much it would cost but it is pretty incredible to imagine where we power our cars by harnessing the suns powers. Anyone ever seen this done in person before?

 

[Sandra]

Unfortunatley I've only seen vids and some pictures of cars with solar paneling. I'm personally content with the concept of the ford focus electric as is; at least for the moment. The focus ev has come a long way from what fords use to be.

I'm sure when solar panels develop enough we'll see them everywhere. Everything will run on that form of power. Thanks for the link, i love the ford focus electric forums!

 

[Robert]

I would love to see solar panneling in my Ford Focus Electric; as long as it's hail proof! I don't want any dings in my shinny focus ev.

I would really enjoy getting away from any gas or electricity that requires burning of fossil fuels. The ford focus electric is the closest thing to that, which also looks good to me.

I would like to see more people post pictures of their ford focus electric on the ford focus electric forums.

 

[NextGenDriver]

I think solar power is the wave of the future and any way the ford focus electric can incorporate solar power into its life cycle / functions the better we will all most likely be. It would be cool if one of the big electric vehicle charging station companies used green / solar energy to power up the stations / EV's. This would make going green in your focus electric even easier (and better!).

 

[gregmg]

When mounted on your home's roof, solar power is almost cost effective. When placed on the vehicle it just doesn't make any sense at all. I was thinking about converting a small pickup to electric, and I calculated how long it would take to charge it from the sun if the pickup bed and the top of the cab were capped with solar panels. It would have taken a full week of sitting in the sun to recharge after driving just 80 to 100 miles. Some car makers are integrating solar panels into the roofs of the hybrid and electric vehicles (Fisker Karma, for example), but the power generated is used either for accessories or for cabin cooling while the vehicle is parked.

Greg G.

 

[liezetB]

I prefer the Ford Focus Electric Car that a solar powered car.

 

[malert]

Now a day, Solar energy has become the most used renewable energy. So, congratulation that you are even thinking of using it and in an unconventional way! You know, using it with your car will be Superb! Even I've seen such development with a Laptop's surface! Just go ahead.

 

[Rwbill]

It requires a very sizable array, many stacked 120 watt panels, for instance, to come close to start replacing the wattage consumed by driving 25 miles to work for instance. There is no practical sized portable array that could charge a car during a work day. Unless you work night shifts, if you live in an area that has a decent solar rating the best thing you could do is try to run your solar through a grid tie-in to offset electricity used. Trying to directly charge your EV, i.e. run a rooftop size array through a 120VAC inverter to your car to charge, is not a practical thing.

Consumer grade PhotoVoltaic panels are still quite inefficient, capturing about 16% of available energy. In spite of hopeful theoretical or lab results, practical production for consumers is stuck at this level for a good while. If NASA grade panels, or advancements to 42% efficiency were practical, then we'd really be on to something.

 

[igh]

What RwBill said is correct.

I have a grid tied solar system on my roof here in the Bay area. It is sized to offset the yearly use of 2 EVs. I currently have the Volt and it is offsetting its charging requirement quite nicely. In fact there is a surplus now to be used up when I get the FFE or the Leaf.

In the city, typically you will average 31kwh/100 miles. So if you drive 12000 miles on EV annually, you need about 3720 KwH of electricity generation. 1 Kw of solar array generates about 1450 kwh of energy annually in the Bay area. So you will need a 2.5 Kw solar array to generate all that energy. Such a system will require 200 sq ft of roof area, certainly much larger than the roof of a car. Also the energy generated is cumulative and varies with the seasons. So if you want daily offset without long term storage you will require 2 to 3 times the size of that system. So under current technology, the roof of the FFE is totally inadequate for solar charging.

The 11.8 KW system that I have totally covers up the southern face of my single story roof. Under city code I cannot add any more panels though I think it will be adequate for all my energy needs in the foreseeable future.

 

[jennilynB]

Solar Power car is interesting. How must energy can it store to last during bad season? I'm interested to know its features.

 

[mrpalerider]

What RwBill said is correct.

I have a grid tied solar system on my roof here in the Bay area. It is sized to offset the yearly use of 2 EVs. I currently have the Volt and it is offsetting its charging requirement quite nicely. In fact there is a surplus now to be used up when I get the FFE or the Leaf.

In the city, typically you will average 31kwh/100 miles. So if you drive 12000 miles on EV annually, you need about 3720 KwH of electricity generation. 1 Kw of solar array generates about 1450 kwh of energy annually in the Bay area. So you will need a 2.5 Kw solar array to generate all that energy. Such a system will require 200 sq ft of roof area, certainly much larger than the roof of a car. Also the energy generated is cumulative and varies with the seasons. So if you want daily offset without long term storage you will require 2 to 3 times the size of that system. So under current technology, the roof of the FFE is totally inadequate for solar charging.

The 11.8 KW system that I have totally covers up the southern face of my single story roof. Under city code I cannot add any more panels though I think it will be adequate for all my energy needs in the foreseeable future.

Dude...thanks for that break down, very informative! That's pretty amazing capture for only 200sq/ft with how low the efficiency rate is of commercially sold panels. Do you mind telling me if you use a battery storage system tied into your 'mini-grid' or if you just feed it back into the utility feed and reduce your utility bill? I have a creek in my back yard that I would love to tap into with a micro-hydro turbine but the cost of batteries/inverters/etc scares me off. Thanks for the post.

 

[igh]

I do not have any batteries. I feed excess power back to the grid and use the grid as my "giant battery". The bi-directional utility meter records the debits and credits. You will need an inverter to feed back to the grid if you generate DC like Solar panels. In case of a water turbine you might be able to generate AC. In that case you just need a transformer to match grid voltage. Currently my utility bill is zero. With the FFE I am aiming to make my gas bill zero too - at least in day to day life when I am not going on long drives.

 

[malert]

I could not think of any possible crazy thing like this solar panel. It really helps us to save expenses and will eventually work as it is like the usual power that we are using. I would probably search for more information and will share it to you guys.

 

[mrpalerider]

I do not have any batteries. I feed excess power back to the grid and use the grid as my "giant battery". The bi-directional utility meter records the debits and credits. You will need an inverter to feed back to the grid if you generate DC like Solar panels. In case of a water turbine you might be able to generate AC. In that case you just need a transformer to match grid voltage. Currently my utility bill is zero. With the FFE I am aiming to make my gas bill zero too - at least in day to day life when I am not going on long drives.

Yeah, that was kind of what I was thinking. The difficult part for me is that I am in BC, Canada which gets little sun and electricity is cheap: currently 6.8cents/kWhr compared to California @ 11.6cents/kWhr. There are no grants here for installing such devices and if it costs a bundle to install with very little pay back then it will take 25years to pay back!

 

[igh]

Currently prices have fallen to about $4/watt installed for commercial installers before any rebates. I am an engineer - designed the system and purchased the parts myself and got a contractor to do the installation. It cost me $3/watt before the rebates. After the rebates here is CA (bot state and federal) it was $2/watt. At that level assuming 25yr life it comes to about 6.5c/Kwh which is about half of current CA rate and even cheaper than current BC rates. I can bet utility rates will be no where near that in 25 years. You should redo the math with the current panel prices - as low as 75c/watt in some online sites. Surprising that Canada has no incentives for renewable power.

 

[Leo]

What I would like to do is use my focus as a battery back up for my solar system. Would be cool to use the same plug i use to charge the car now. If the power goes down it would run my home at night. Then in the day the panels could recharge the car and run my home.